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This is not Moon’s first time defending child marriage and citing these unnamed people who got married at age 12. Moon expressed support for child marriage in 2018 when he opposed a bill that would raise the marriage age in Missouri from 15 to 16 and would require parental consent for older teens to marry. At the time, he cited a couple he claims to have met in college who married one another at age 12, and called their situation “something to ponder.”

Moon’s support for child marriage co-exists with his party’s constant anti-LGBTQ fear-mongering that baselessly frames queer and trans adults as predatory “groomers.” Yet Moon’s pro-child marriage comments this week (a stance that firmly aligns with the concept of “grooming,” in my opinion) notably stemmed from being called out on his anti-trans politics. Comically hypocritical as all of this may be, it’s not a coincidence: The far right has long relied on misdirected pedophilia accusations at LGBTQ people, while supporting child marriage and abortion bans as a tool to police and control girls and violently impose the patriarchy on them.

On Wednesday, shortly after his latest round of pro-child marriage comments went viral online, Moon unsuccessfully tried to clarify his comments on Twitter. “Something that is often missing is the back story. With regard to my answer, I did not discuss the details: a 12 year old impregnated a minor of similar age. With consent of the parents, they married… and are still married today,” he wrote. In a follow-up tweet that really didn’t do what he think it did, he said, “Her parents consented - no force. Their marriage is thriving.”

That distinction, of course, isn’t as important as Moon seems to think it is. Child marriage is still child marriage. And it’s neither healthy nor safe for a 12-year-old to be pregnant, likely forced to remain pregnant by their parents, and then forced or pressured by them to be married as well.

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Moon—who’s compared abortion to the Holocaust and slavery—isn’t exactly famous for his reasonable politics, so it would be easy to chalk his latest comments up to his absurd beliefs. But in reality, child marriage and forced birth imposed on children aren’t as outside of the conservative mainstream as you might think. Moon is just one very obnoxious, unabashed mouthpiece for the scary, broad arm of the evangelical wing of the Republican Party.